


The Limits of Nostalgia

by Radioinactivity



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drama, Established Relationship, Eva realizes she married a very complicated person, F/M, Mild Nightmare Fuel, More DMC World Building, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 20:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17050073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radioinactivity/pseuds/Radioinactivity
Summary: Eva meets her husband's oldest friend.





	The Limits of Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely tied to [And The Devil Makes Three](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15957938/chapters/37217744) but it's not required reading.

The villa at the top of the hill was beautiful. Its stucco walls were immaculately white, save for where a skilled gardener had allowed crimson glory vine to crawl around the posts of the veranda.The light of the setting sun reflected off the red-shingled roof and made the old house look as though it had been put to a match. Cypress trees lined the brick driveway their car coasted over, leading up to a round, tiered fountain in front of the house. It looked, Eva thought, like a movie set. There was even a row of luxury cars parked in front of them.  
  
“She never said she’d have company.” Her husband’s uneasy tone broke her out of her admiration from the home. Sparda scowled from the passenger seat, blue eyes narrowed as he surveyed the manse, fingers wrapping tight around his cane. It was only when he felt his wife’s anxiety that the tension on his face broke. “Sorry. It… shouldn’t be a problem.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“She’s eccentric. But you don’t have any reason to be afraid.” Which was not the same as saying someone isn’t dangerous and they both knew it. He opened his door and had come around to her side by the time she’d turned the family Cabriolet off. Sparda’s hand extended toward her and she let herself be lifted to her feet with a soft laugh. A slight smile pulled across his mouth but his shoulders stayed squared, his grip on his cane tight.  
  
Outside of the car, she could hear music - lilting violins carried over the wind and the plink of delicate piano playing - and the chatter and laughter of people. It came from somewhere behind the house; maybe in the gardens.  
  
“It sounds like a party. I hope I’m not under dressed,” she remarked before glancing down at her wine-colored wrap dress. Above her, Sparda laughed and Eva tilted her eyes up to survey her husband. He wasn’t wearing the usual ostentatious coat but a more simple, plum peacoat over black.   
  
More important was the look on his face. The laugh had been short-lived, quickly replaced by dread. Her arm looped through his and held fast. When was the last time he was this tense in their twenty years together? Ever? She found herself doubting the prudence of this venture, wondering if maybe they should get back in the car and go back home to the boys and tell the nanny that the trip was cancelled.  
  
In that moment of nervous hesitation, Eva’s mind wandered to the last few months. How many nights had he woke up wracked by inexplicable agony? How many afternoons had he spent passed out on the couch, gripped by an exhaustion that would not relent no matter how much he slept? And his leg. Even on his best days, his left leg’s strength refused to return. The cane - something he used to carry for its quaint aesthetics - had become a necessity. Even now, his weight leaned toward it to keep him standing comfortably.  
  
“We should go in,” she murmured, suddenly very aware of why they were here. She couldn’t stand to see him suffer a minute longer. “Nothing’s getting fixed standing in the driveway.”  
  
Sparda laughed above her. Then she felt the familiar warmth of his lips pressing into her hairline. She drank in the smell of his cologne with deep breath and contented smile - something made from sandalwood she’d given him as a gift years ago and he kept buying for himself when she said how much she loved the smell on him specifically.  
  
“Right you are,” he replied gently and let her steer him toward the front door.  
  
As though rehearsed, the pair of red arched doors swung open on their own. Eva saw their host before she could focus on anything else. How could she not? The woman walking down the marble hall leading into the foyer reminded Eva of a figure from one of her art history books. She was resplendent in a cocktail dress made of gold mermaid scale sequins and her oil-black hair flowed behind her like woodsmoke. The luxuriance of her dress was only magnified when she stepped into the foyer. Each scale reflected the warm light and sent pinpricks of it dancing on the floors as she approached.  
  
“Well, _there_ you are! I’ve been wondering when you would show up all night!”  
  
It was hard to believe this woman had fought in an ancient war as one of the Dark Knight’s generals. Sparda claimed she was human but Eva didn’t know of any human magic that could keep a person perpetually young for 2000 years.  
  
She was stunning, smiling like she was being photographed for a magazine as she approached the pair and held out one spidery hand for Sparda to take. There was a moment’s hesitation and Eva saw a flash of distaste tighten his expression. But propriety took over and finally he raised her porcelain knuckles to his lips for a polite kiss.  
  
“Hello, Aria.”  
  
Her smile broadened. Eva thought perhaps the woman had far too many perfect teeth in her mouth.  
  
“Is this your wife? I’d heard you’d settled down without a wedding.” Her eyes were radiant gold, almost the same color as the scales of her dress. They seemed to brighten when their attention fell upon Eva - a cat peering at a mouse. “What a shame. I’m sure she’d be picture-perfect in a wedding dress.”  
  
_“Aria-”_  
  
“She has a name and can speak for herself, thank you,” Eva snapped before she could stop herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her husband’s lips pull tight to suppress a smile. And for a moment, Aria looked taken aback before her eyes narrowed and her lips curled upward. Eva was sure now that she had more teeth than any normal person should.  
  
“Oh, you’re spirited. How fun!” Her fingers reached up to sweep one flowing rivulet of black hair behind her ear, flashing expensive looking earrings before gesturing back to the foyer. “My manners seem to be failing me this evening. Come in, come in, both of you. Your name is, dear?”  
  
“...Eva,” her tone was tentative and she let Sparda take the lead as they finally crossed the threshold.  
  
A split grand staircase hugged walls lined with paintings of beautiful young women while a grand chandelier hung overhead, casting everything in warm, bright light. Eva would call it beautiful if it weren’t so disconcerting. The ceilings felt too tall, the walls too close, and all of the eyes in every painting seemed to follow them. Even with music playing, their shoes clicked a little too loud against the marble floors. The thought entered her mind again that she had entered a movie set.  
  
“Can I interest either of you in anything?” She began to stride down the hall she came from. “Wine, bourbon, whisky? There’s a whole spread out in the garden. You could meet some of my-”  
  
“We’ll have to pass,” Sparda interrupted in clipped tone. “We weren’t made aware there would be a party at all.”  
  
“A party! Please, I’m just having a few guests over for dinner. You’ve been a recluse too long if you think this is a party.” Then she turned to walk backwards to focus her attention on Eva with gold eyes alight. “You should have seen us in our prime. ‘Party’ doesn’t suffice. They were positively bacchanalian.”  
  
Sparda scoffed under his breath and his longtime cohort let her red lips tuck into a fussy pout.  
  
“Ugh, you’re such a coot. Just give me a moment to excuse myself to my guests.”  
  
They rounded a corner and Eva found herself standing in the doorway of a small parlor. A pair of girls sat on the couch against the back wall, one in her teens and the other much younger - maybe the same age as her sons. Both wore matching dresses and boots. The older of the two looked up with surprise on her face, stopping herself in the middle of braiding the little one’s long, immaculate red hair.   
  
“Now why aren’t the two of you outside?” Aria asked. Her tone was sweet only on the surface; Eva could hear ice creeping into every syllable. “I thought I told you two to stay with the guests-”  
  
“No, no. This is fine,” Sparda interrupted, cutting through the pall that had fallen over the two girls, drawing their attention to him. “I was hoping for a chance to meet your daughters.” His expression was warm but his voice was softer than she expected. Almost longing. She wondered if it was because he missed the boys or… Something else from a two thousand year history. Then Aria waved a dismissive hand.  
  
“Proper introductions can wait until after we’ve concluded our business. Dahlia, show these two to my workshop.” The older of the pair bowed politely, taking a moment to lay a gentle hand on her sister’s head, before striding forward. Eva saw the girl had the same sunlight gold eyes as her mother.  
  
“Please follow me.”  
  
She didn’t wait for a response. She just walked past Eva and Sparda with her chin lifted and her hands folded in front of her. The pair exchanged apprehensive looks and her husband glanced over his shoulder, at Aria leading the little one out of a pair of french doors and into the gardens. Her half-finished braid was slipping out of its plait with every hurried step. Sparda opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something, but shook his head and looked down at Eva instead.  
  
The strangest thought struck her out of nowhere as she peered up at him: _He knows something._ But that was insane, wasn’t it? He never kept secrets from her. They told each other everything. _  
__  
_ Dahlia kept her distance from the pair as they walked. Unlike the little one, her hair was black as pitch, the same as her mother, and pinned up into a prim bun at the back of her head. It suited the firm poise she carried herself with.  
  
“Your name is Dahlia?” Sparda asked in that same gentle tone from earlier. No reply. The girl didn’t even break stride. “What’s your sister’s name?”  
  
Hesitation. One step faltered for the briefest moment but she was quick to recover. Eva expected her to maintain the usual silence until she broke it with a single word: “Aster.”  
  
“Flowers. Both of you,” he mused. They stood in front of another pair of glass doors looking out at a swath of manicured bushes and trees. About a hundred yards away, Eva could see a building far smaller than the extravagant villa. Dahlia’s slender hands clutched tight at the pair of doorknobs and she laughed. It was a humorless sound.  
  
“Well, she did grow us all by herself,” she muttered before throwing the doors open. “This way.” And then she stepped forward before she let either of them ask what exactly that meant.  
  
The garden was expansive. Eva hadn’t been able to tell as they drove up,  hidden as it was by tall hedge walls, but she could see now that it covered most of the property on the hill. Not a single blade of grass grew out of place. Everything from the vines to the flowers was seemingly under control. Even the trees at the back of the property had been shorn recently, their branches cut short and stretching into the darkening sky like severed fingers.  
  
“You’re Sparda, aren’t you?” Dahlia asked abruptly. She didn’t wait for a response. “My older sister told me about you all the time. She was a fan. How silly, right? But I think she must have read every story mother had about you in her library a dozen times over.” Another joyless laugh. “It was a bit of a crush.”  
  
Eva felt her husband’s entire body go rigid. He might have stopped walking all together if it weren’t for her leading him forward. And his expression was impossible to read. His brows were creased, mouth drawn tight, neck flexing. He wanted to say something but couldn’t. He stared hard at the small back leading them through the rows of hedge walls and she could swear the look on his face was _regret._  
  
But why?  
  
“She talked about how handsome you were. I guess she found a portrait in a book somewhere. Your poise, your grace, how noble you seemed. The way you didn’t tolerate injustice. How you punished those who preyed on the weak and helpless. You sounded so incredible, so strong and brave. A real knight in shining armor. But now...”  
  
She stopped in front of the old house at the back of the garden, eyes fixed on the weathered door, hands falling to her sides in tight fists. Then she turned, opened the door, and looked her husband in the eye:  
  
“You don’t seem that impressive to me.”  
  
There was so much more venom in those words than Eva could ever anticipate. Bright gold eyes stared through the love of her life with rage that threatened to boil over and flood the garden. She smiled without feeling and lifted one hand to gesture for them to enter the old workshop. Sparda stayed quiet.  
  
“I apologize for my rudeness, ma’am.” She turned her attention upon Eva, the fury leaving her expression as if she flipped a switch. “Do you require anything from me?”  
  
“I-I… N-no, that will be all, dear.”  
  
“Then my mother will be with you shortly.”  
  
And with that, she started back toward the house, leaving Eva baffled in her wake. She looked back and forth between the girl and her husband, who just appeared increasingly exhausted. The clearing up the confusion brought on by a single teenager’s fury would have to wait. She reached out, took him by the arm once more, and both walked into the old house to find him someplace to sit.  
  
Though to call it a “house” would be generous. It was really moreso a stone shack no bigger than a standard garage. It lacked any of the grandeur of the villa. The floors were dirt, the roof thatched. A table covered in books took up one corner and another was occupied with shelves packed tight with boxes and jars full of strange ingredients - crimson red dust, bundles of flax, jars of colored stones suspended in liquid.  
  
Strangest of them all were the busts. The top three rows of shelves on the wall were lined with life-sized bust sculptures made of alabaster, each perfectly white, each a young woman. They all looked familiar and Eva was quick to realize she’d seen them before, in the paintings hanging on the foyer’s walls. None of the busts wore that radiant smile though. They were blank faced, their eye sockets empty. And still she felt as though they were looking at them.  
  
At her husband as he settled his weight into one of the chairs by Aria’s desk.  
  
“Thank you, love,” he sighed out. “I’m afraid I’ve rapidly become an old man.”  
  
“Oh hush you.” Eva bent down to kiss the top of his hair the way he had done before. A teasing smile pulled across her mouth when their eyes met. “You’ve always been an old man.”  
  
“And now she’s mocking me. How the mighty have fallen,” came the wry retort, grinning through his fatigue. She giggled despite herself and pat a hand against her husband’s cheek. “Right, right. Chin up.”  
  
“We’re here to fix this problem, remember?” Another kiss, this time to his forehead, and she stayed there far longer. Until Sparda’s strong arms came up to wrap around her figure and pull her closer. She soaked in the warmth that came with such a hold and smiled against his skin. “Just be patient.”  
  
Eva slid out of her husband’s hold not a moment too soon. The door to the shack swung open and in strode their host, still wearing her glittering cocktail dress and now carrying a full wine glass. She surveyed them with amusement, as if she thought their closeness was terribly quaint, but said nothing. Instead she walked over to her workbench to open drawers on the hunt for… something.  
  
“I see you’ve made yourselves comfortable.” she asked, opening the topmost drawer and letting out a quiet “ah.” She withdrew a gold rod about a yard long and gave it an experimental swing through the air. “What did you think of Dahlia? I hope she treated you well.”  
  
“I like her,” Sparda replied without hesitation, a warm smile stretching across his face. “She’s very spirited.” Which were kinder words than Eva would use, but it was rare for her husband to say an unkind word about anyone. Aria rolled her eyes, clearly familiar with his charitable nature, and walked to the empty center of the room.  
  
“Of course you’d say that.” She placed the pointed tip of the rod and let it dig into the dirt. “I’ve heard rude, frigid, impatient, and impertinent, but never ‘spirited.’ I suppose it suits her though.” Slowly, she dragged through the ground, gouging deep lines that curved one way, then the other. Occasionally it would break away to write something next to a line before resuming its trajectory. “It’s more fun when they’re lively. You understand, right?”  
  
Aria looked up at Eva and her lips curled upward again. Her bare feet padded over the dirt, walking in a circle, enclosing the entire elaborate rune as she went. The moment it was complete, the air shifted and vibrated, as if static filled the room.  
  
“I can’t say I do.”   
  
Her husband’s old friend hummed with quiet laughter as she wrote out the last runes around the circle and the staticky sensation intensified. Eva felt her hair bristling outward. She gripped Sparda’s shoulder with one hand and he laid his own on top of it.  
  
“Your boys are your first, right? You’ll get it soon enough.”  
  
She was increasingly sure she didn’t want to understand anything about this woman.  
  
“All right, old man, into the circle.”  
  
Sparda scoffed and pushed himself to stand with his cane. “If I’m old,” he began as he walked to stand in the rune. “Then what does that make you?”  
  
“Well, I’m currently only thirty, so… Young and spry and in my prime, I guess,” Aria replied with a mischievous note in her voice. She didn’t give Eva a chance to question her. One slender hand lifted and the symbol drawn into the floor began to glow with bright gold light.  
  
Sparda’s face twitched, almost wincing before he became accustomed to the strange buzzing humming under his skin. The static had transferred to him and surged through his entire body. It traveled over his bones and through his muscles and Eva could see a warm glow through his pale skin as Aria’s strange magicks traveled through his veins. It reminded her of something she’d seen in one of her own ceramics history books - broken Japanese dishes, repaired with molten gold. _Kintsugi_.   
  
The woman made a thoughtful hum and circled him with deliberate steps. Eva could see symbols scrolling over the surface of her eyes, streaming downward like text on a tv. The witch placed the rod on the dirt again and inscribed something different into a specific part of the ring. The glow changed color, tilting toward orange, and she casually slapped the back of Sparda’s leg with her instrument.  
  
“Stand up straight.”  
  
“That’s a bit hard with a bum leg, Aria. Do you know what’s wrong or not?” His tone was short, obviously tiring of her disposition. She seemed unbothered. Instead she walked over to her workbench and flipped through an open notebook filled to the brim with unfamiliar, handwritten symbols.  
  
“So testy tonight.” She gestured to her circle and the glowing abruptly stopped. Sparda let out a sharp breath, as though he was unaware he’d been holding it, and touched at his arms and chest to make sure the vibration under his skin had stopped. He looked at Eva with uncertainty all over his face. “And I do. Though considering the mood you’re in, you’re not going to like it.”  
  
“You’re right, I’m not in the m-”  
  
“Your demonic body is finally rejecting this realm.”  
  
The words cut through everything else like the swing of one of her husband’s broadswords. Eva felt the twitching fingers of panic bloom inside her stomach and start clawing away inside. She looked from Aria to her husband and saw his eyes grow wide as the information absorbed.  
  
“It’s been two _thousand_ years, Aria. It can’t-”  
  
She rolled her eyes. “Exactly. It’s been two thousand years. A lesser demon wouldn’t have have lasted half that time. Humans belong on one plane of existence, demons in another. You are a man out of your element, my lord. That’s why your body is reacting the way it is - you’ve trapped it in an ill-fitting human form for too long. Your considerable power sustains it but it won’t last. I suppose if you chose to live as the monster I knew you as-” Sparda’s jaw locked, but she paid no heed his low growl. “-You could buy yourself more time, but it would be a bandaid on an ever-bleeding wound. You need to return to the Underworld, restore your strength. It’s as simple as that.”  
  
“For… for how long?” Eva asked, her voice shaking more than she wanted. Aria flipped through a few pages of her notes as she pondered on the question.  
  
“Not long. A century. Maybe two.”  
  
“A cen- The boys and I will be gone by then!” She said it without thinking, her voice seized by fear. Sparda had already begun to sink his weight back onto his cane. It was as though the news had leeched the last of his energy from exhausted bones. “There has to be something else. Anything else.”  
  
“Well. You could use one of the boys.”  
  
Such a casual suggestion. Aria didn’t even look up from her reading as she said it.  
  
“...what…?”  
  
“They’d make fine vessels. Demon blood is strong, I’m positive they’re both nearly genetically identical to him.” Finally the witch turned her attention to Eva. She flashed her perfect, innumerable teeth with a girlish laugh that seemed just a little too uneasy. “Either one would do. Though I’ve heard the older one is a bit sturdier. Vergil, was it?”  
  
“What are you-”  
  
Mania pulled Aria’s eyes wide and stretched her smile further. Eva heard Sparda say her name at the edge of her hearing, but it was suddenly distant. She felt like the whole world had tilted at an angle. She felt the eyeless stare of two dozen busts boring holes into the back of her skull. She felt Dahlia’s rage and her hopelessness.  
  
She realized how a human could stay perpetually young across two millenia.   
  
“You’d have to wait ten, maybe fifteen years, but that’s better than two hundred, isn’t it? And you’d still have plenty of time to work all of those maternal longings out of your system. Personally I’m waiting until Aster is about twenty-five. She’ll be perfect then. Dahlia is just a buffer in case something goes wrong with this body.”  
  
She realized Sparda had been here when Aria almost certainly didn’t look the way she did now.  
  
And she realized she hadn’t met Dahlia’s older sister.  
  
“What did you do?” she asked and wasn’t sure if the question was for the monster in front of her or her husband a few feet away. “You - How could you? They’re your-  
  
“Children?” Aria’s eyebrows raised with amusement. “Nonsense. They’re homunculi. I never birthed them. I made them with my own hands. Sculpted them from the mud in this very room and then breathed life into it with a bit of my own blood. It’s much more reliable than childbirth. I can plan out every aspect of their appearance before I even extract the infant from clay. They’re more like…” She tapped a thoughtful finger against her mouth as she searched for the word. “Like art. And Aster is my masterpiece - perfectly human in every way. I’ll be able to slip into her like a comfortable pair of shoes.”  
  
Eva thought of Dahlia’s little sister, sitting on her knees on the couch in that parlor, seemingly pleased to have her hair braided. The same age as her sons, barely seven, and just as innocent. And she was a living, thinking girl, as was Dahlia. Neither were mindless dolls. She called them homunculi but all Eva saw were a pair of children trapped in a madhouse with a maniac.  
  
It was no wonder she felt overwhelmed by the urge to strike the woman in front of her. The surprising part was that she followed through. Her hand moved on its own, slapped across Aria’s face hard enough to jerk her head to the side and leave the witch in wide-eyed shock.  
  
And then all of her black hair surged forward, a thousand furious snakes striking outward at once in a coordinated wave. The only thing that kept them from wrapping around Eva’s neck was the clawed hand of her transformed husband, gripping all of it in one fist. He stared down at Aria through a pair of red slits that glowed with brilliant fury.  
  
“I hope,” he began in a voice that sounded like several speaking at once. “You weren’t intending on harming _my wife.”_  
  
“Perhaps you ought to teach your mortal pet how to show gratitude to someone trying to help her darling husband,” she returned with unconcealed venom. “Or are you going to take umbrage with me now too, _my lord?_ After two thousand years?” Her hair fell limp in his hold but that violent intent never went away. The shack itself felt small and oppressive as Aria’s fervored anger focused on them. “How many faces have I worn in all this time, hm? Or do you only care now that my homunculi make you think of your pitiful twins? You seemed happy to turn a blind eye when you thought they were dolls.”  
  
“I’ve heard _enough_ , Aria.”  
  
“And I tire of your moralizing.” Her hair slithered out from Sparda’s scaled hold and whipped itself behind her back, twisting into spikes that hung past her waist like drawn swords ready to strike. “I think it’s time the two of you left. We both know you’re in no condition to fight.”  
  
A mouth full of sharp teeth pulled into a furious snarl. “Do you want to test that theory of yours?”  
  
“Do _you?_ There’s no guarantee your lovely wife won’t be caught in the crossfire.”  
  
Tense silence fell over the three. Even transformed, Eva could see the exhaustion deep in her husband’s eyes. His step never faltered, his posture didn’t shake, but she knew when he was at his limit. It was like something fundamental in him was malfunctioning. The energy that usually radiated off this form was cold, diminished. And Aria had the advantage, plus no reservations about keeping her guests safe the way Sparda did. She’d sooner use them as shields.  
  
He heaved out a long, ragged sigh. Monstrous features transitioned back to the face of her husband, tired and angry and full of the regret she saw earlier. Now she knew why. And he’d never been one to back down from a fight. Eva had to gently put a hand on his arm to remind him that she was there at all. His blue eyes twitched down toward her and she saw something else - shame.  
  
“We’re not done. I’m coming back,” he muttered to Aria, voice rough, jaw tight. Her lip curled into a cruel sneer and she leaned back onto her worktable, all her weight resting on her palms. The pointed tips of her hair raised around her - cobras poised to strike if Sparda made any sudden moves.  
  
“If you last until the end of the year, I’ll be waiting.”

 

\--

 

They didn’t speak the whole walk back through the garden. 

  
Eva kept her eyes forward, her pace quick. If Sparda said her name, then it was muffled in the background of her anger. She didn’t know what to think or say or do. Staying would mean a bloodbath that would end in carnage. Leaving meant abandoning two young girls to the whims of a psychopath. She walked faster and decided her husband would eventually catch up. The car wasn’t going anywhere.  
  
How much did he know? For how long? She thought he told her everything important. How naive was she? He was two _thousand_ years old. She was barely forty and had plenty of shadows hiding in her past. Why didn’t she expect the same from him?  
  
Because she didn’t expect this. This was too cruel. It was a nightmare. She pushed the doors open leading back into the main house. The clicking of her high heels echoed down the halls and she thought of their own home. Her sons always shrieking and running through its corridors. They’d laugh and argue the way siblings should - company or not. This silence, this emptiness, the overwhelming sense that everything here had been staged should have tipped her off that this wasn’t a place for children. This was death row.  
  
The hall opened into the entryway once more and finally she stopped. The chandelier’s light wasn’t warm anymore, it was sickly and jaundiced. The walls were still too tall, everything was too clean. And the paintings were still there, no longer pretty novelties, but elaborate death masks. Stolen faces and bodies on display and each with identical smiles with too many awful teeth and identical liquid gold eyes.  
  
Disgust - with Aria, with her husband, with _herself_ \- carried her outside. Night had fallen over the villa on top of the hill, bringing the quiet chirp of crickets and frogs to accompany the ghost of music still playing from the party. Nowhere else to go now. She walked over to their old Cabriolet and sunk down to sit on the roof of the car. Her eyes fixated on her hands mindlessly twisting and fiddling with the gold band wrapped around her finger. Waiting for the inevitable:  
  
“Eva.”  
  
And there he was. Her husband. The love of her life standing in the doorway, backlit by yellowed light, leaning on his cane and staring at her with a furrowed brow and pursed lips.   
  
“...have I married a Bluebeard?”  
  
His shoulders sunk low. He gripped the top of his cane tight and took a few steps toward her. “Eva, that’s-”  
  
“Have I?” Again she focused on her wedding ring and a blithe laugh slipped past her lips. “Did I peek into a chamber I shouldn’t have?” Rows of empty eyed busts staring down at them flashed through her mind. She kept her head down, straw blonde hair hanging over her shoulders to keep her face veiled.  
  
She couldn’t see him, but she could hear him. The irregular three-note tap of her husband’s gait as he closed the gap between them. He murmured in discomfort and both of his hands laid on top of her knees. He was kneeling in front of her in the driveway.  
  
“The first time Aria transferred herself into a homunculus was fifty, maybe sixty years after the war. It was barely human looking. A step above a clay sculpture but she was _ecstatic._ She’d found her immortality. Then every twenty, thirty years, she would cycle through them. New designs, new styles. Changing with the fashion of the times.  
  
“She outlived all my generals. First the humans, then even the demons.” His chuckle was a grim, unhappy sound. “But- They weren't alive then. The shells were empty, just statues she could climb into. And I was happy. She was... the only friend I had left.”  
  
“...but something changed…” she murmured and kept her head down.  
  
“I didn’t notice - She changed. She…” He cast about helplessly for words. “Insisted that she make them in advance. They could follow her around, act as research assistants. Swore that she felt more real, more human if the body had been ‘lived in.’ But they - they were never alive -” His hands held onto her legs tighter and Eva realized they were shaking. “I don’t know when she decided they should be. I had no idea how bad it had gotten. How far gone she was.”  
  
Quiet again. Distant laughter erupted from the garden and both turned their heads toward it. Looking at the house, she was struck by how it seemed almost fabricated now. She was waiting for a strong wind to come by and blow Hollywood facade down. A shaking sigh slipped through her lips.  
  
“Maybe no one is meant to live this long… Human or demon.”  
  
Cold pain shot through her stomach and she remembered why they were here. The bad news that had set everything in motion came back to the forefront of her mind. Her husband, the man she’d been with for over twenty years, was falling apart at a fundamental level. It wasn’t something they could fix.  
  
“Don’t say that,” she finally spoke and Sparda visibly winced.  
  
“Sorry. You’re right. Now isn’t-”   
  
One of her hands fell on top of his and held tight. The other laid against his jaw to tilt his head up toward her. Bright blue eyes flickered over her face and she wondered what he was thinking. Her husband had become an enigma to her again.  
  
“What do we do...?” She hated how weak her voice sounded. It felt like everything had come apart in just a few short hours. Even as the idea of her husband slipping away from her sent paroxysms of fear through her entire body, she couldn’t stop thinking about the girls either. Dahlia and Aster - they were children, the same as her sons, and how could she live with herself if she went home and pretended everything was fine?   
  
Sparda said nothing.  
  
“You aren’t really thinking of leaving, are you?”  
  
“I… I honestly don’t know. That’s a bit scary, isn’t it?” he admitted with a tired smile. Her throat constricted, her grip on him tightened, and he knew the fear wasn’t just his own. One of his large hands fell on top her own against his cheek. “Eva, I can’t stay like this. If I don’t do something soon, then…This will just get worse. I wouldn’t be any good to you, or the boys, or those girls.  
  
“Loathe as I am to admit it... Aria’s right.”  
  
She was afraid he’d say that. Already she thought of their house, a single person emptier and a pair of twins without their father, and her eyes screwed shut tight. She had to force them out. Mourning the time together they were inevitably going to lose would have to come later. She could cry somewhere else, by herself, somewhere secret in the house.   
  
Letting it out here, where the suffering was an order of a magnitude worse, felt wrong.  
  
“Just promise me that you’ll come back. To me and the boys and… you’ll burn this place to the ground.”  
  
He smiled despite their circumstances. Neither of them had any idea what the future held but he could bask in how much he loved her for just a moment.  
  
“Of course.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Well, it was a nice sentiment anyways.


End file.
